Results in recent elections have been attributed to voter blocs such as “soccer moms”, “Nascar Dads”, and “values voters”. The election in 2006 is labeled as a referendum on the war in Iraq. The results of this election will play a significant role in how the presidential election in 2008 is framed.

Reverend Mendle Adams will join FIG on Tuesday, November 28 to discuss the results of elections and analyze its impact on the major social issues of today, including how religion and government will operate in the new Congress.

Born in a fundamentalist Christian home, Reverend Adams was raised attending fundamentalist Bible School and College. However, as a reverend, Mendle has championed causes of social justice, working for Equal Rights Ratification, Witness of Peace, The Nuclear Freeze, and Gay Rights. As ecumenical campus chaplain at Oklahoma State University, Reverend Adams was the only clergy member to join the ACLU lawsuit against the board of regents to allow the students to show the The Last Temptation of Christ. The movie was deemed “blasphemous” by the Board of Regents, but the ACLU suit was victorious in court, the movie was shown, and the Chairman of the Board of Regents was forced to step down. Reverend Adams also served in the Indiana House of Representatives, where he established his credentials as a ‘thoughtful and liberal Democrat’.

Mendle Adams has been the senior pastor at St. Peter’s United Church of Christ since 1997. Mendle met FIG members, Edwin and Helen Kagin, while he was a pastor in Union, Kentucky during the campaign to defeat the location of the Answers in Genesis “Creationist Museum” next to the Big Bone State Park in Boone County. With Mendle‘s range of experiences and expertise, he is sure to provide a lively presentation that will lead to deep discussion on the next trends in Washington.

Edwin Kagin, National Legal Director for American Atheists will be the guest on the Gene Cook Show this Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2006. You can call in with your questions and comments, and the program can be downloaded from the internet.

WHO: Edwin Kagin, National Legal Director for American Atheists.
WHAT: Will appear live on the radio call-in talk show “The Narrow Mind” in California, hosted by Gene Cook, for an open discussion on Atheism and Christianity

Suspension of Disbelief

Art Student Expelled—For Atheism?

BY AMY JENNIGES

Bob Averill’s classmates at the Art Institute of Portland had finished up their work in a character development class on November 8, and were chatting to pass the time until class was over. The discussion moved toward spirituality. Averill, a Game Art Design student and a devoted atheist—he even runs a blog called Portland Atheist—sidled over and joined the conversation.

It was the last time he’d be in an Art Institute class—within two weeks, he was expelled, less than a year before he’d hoped to graduate.

In the classroom that day, Averill says one young woman was talking about her belief in energy layers and astral beings.

“I jokingly asked her if she believed in leprechauns. It turns out, she does. They live on another energy layer,” Averill wrote in notes to himself later that day. “In the interest of bringing my own view to the discussion, I began to ask her how she knew these things. Again I know all too well that people can be sensitive about their spiritual beliefs, so I was pretty much walking on glass as I did so.”

Averill says he wasn’t trying to disprove the other student’s religious beliefs, but “to convince her not to insist that they were scientifically proven.”

The student, apparently offended, complained to the teacher. Averill was called into a meeting that evening, he says, with the Art Institute’s dean of education, associate dean, and the dean of student affairs.

According to Averill, he was told the meeting was “because of my altercation with [the other student].” Averill says he pointed out that he’d “only offered a different viewpoint in a discussion that [my classmate] had started.”

“They didn’t respond well,” Averill told the Mercury. “Their mantra was ‘no discussing religion in school,’ which is fine except that I did not initiate the conversation, she had.” Averill was suspended for four days, until a judicial hearing with the dean of student affairs.

Immediately after the meeting with the deans, Averill found a classmate who had witnessed the initial conversation, and dragged him to the dean’s office. “I thought I could clear this up, this is just a misunderstanding.” (The witness did not respond to an inquiry from the Mercury.)

But the associate dean, Averill says, “told me she didn’t want to hear from me again that day. So she reported it to the dean as rude and belligerent behavior.”

At the judicial hearing, on November 17, Dean of Student Affairs Ron Engeldinger was more focused on the “rude and belligerent behavior” report from the associate dean, Averill says, than on the initial conversation about religion.

Then Engeldinger, he says, brought up the fact that Averill had had some trouble with three instructors in October. “The thing is, I had already had a meeting with the associate dean about [that]. We resolved the issue and I apologized to the professors involved.” Averill was surprised that Engeldinger brought it up again.

“I expressed that I felt discriminated against as an atheist, and he informed me that mine was not a protected class of people,” Averill says.

Averill has since contacted the Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Freedom from Religion Foundation, based in the Midwest. He says the Freedom from Religion Foundation told him to seek legal counsel, and he expects the ACLU will respond to his inquiry within 60 days.

According to an emailed letter from Engeldinger, Averill had violated the student conduct policy. The decision to dismiss Averill was “not the result of a single action on your part, but a series of actions. I believe that, in several instances, your actions have been aggressive, demeaning, and threatening and that this demonstrates a pattern of inappropriate and unacceptable behavior,” Engeldinger wrote.

The student who complained on November 8 wished to remain anonymous, but her account backs up Engeldinger’s letter. Her complaint was not the only reason he was sent into the Dean’s office. The teacher even told me that my complaint was the ‘last straw’ as SEVERAL other complaints were stated before mine.”

However, she says she “did not wish for him to be expelled or get in trouble and I had no idea that it was going to happen until after the fact.”

“I can say that we have never suspended or terminated or disciplined or otherwise troubled any student at any time about religious issues. It’s never even come up as an issue,” says Goldman, who also teaches a comparative religion class at the school. Given the Art Institute’s liberal arts curriculum, there is no policy against discussing religion or philosophy, “or any other subject as far as I know. We have an academic community in which people are free to explore ideas.”

I am pleased to advise that, with the able assistance of my brilliant and beautiful daughter Heather (email available upon application and satisfactory background check) and my friend Len, that this electronic communications miracle will be (should be–this is not a precise science) spitting forth blasphemies in a more regular and timely manner than heretofore achieved by this aging blogger.

You are invited to inform anyone you wish of this publishing event initiated on November 26th (the date Howard Carter busted into King Tutankhamun’s tomb, the date “Casablanca” premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City, and the date porn star Aurora Snow was born), 2006.

There is some method by which you can be informed when new stuff is posted here, but I don’t know what it is. If you can figure out how to do so, you are welcome to do so.

In closing this announcement, let us observe that the future has never been brighter, which is a terribly discouraging commentary on the past.

The world’s first Creationist museum – dedicated to the idea that the creation of the world, as told in Genesis, is factually correct – will soon open. Stephen Bates is given a sneak preview and asks: was there really a tyrannosaurus in the Bible?
Stephen Bates
Monday November 13, 2006
Guardian

Just off the interstate, a couple of junctions down from Cincinnati’s international airport, over the state line in rural Kentucky, the finishing touches are being put to an impressive-looking building. When it is finished and open to the public next summer, it may, quite possibly, be one of the weirdest museums in the world.

The Creation Museum – motto: “Prepare to Believe!” – will be the first institution in the world whose contents, with the exception of a few turtles swimming in an artificial pond, are entirely fake. It is dedicated to the proposition that the account of the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis is completely correct, and its mission is to convince visitors through a mixture of animatronic models, tableaux and a strangely Disneyfied version of the Bible story.

Its designer, Patrick Marsh, used to work at Universal Studios in Los Angeles and then in Japan before he saw the light, opened his soul to Jesus, and was born anew. “The Bible is the only thing that gives you the full picture,” he says. “Other religions don’t have that, and, as for scientists, so much of what they believe is pretty fuzzy about life and its origins … oh, this is a great place to work, I will tell you that.”

So this is the Bible story, as truth. Apart from the dinosaurs, that is. As you stand in the museum’s lobby – the only part of the building approaching completion – you are surrounded by life-size dinosaur models, some moving and occasionally grunting as they chew the cud.Beside the turtle pool, two animatronic, brown-complexioned children, demurely dressed in Hiawatha-like buckskin, gravely flutter with movement. Behind them lurk two small Tyrannosaurus Rexes. This scene is meant to date from before the Fall of Man and, apparently, dinosaurs.

Theological scholars may have noticed that there are, in fact, no dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible – and here lies the Creationists’ first problem. Since there are undoubtedly dinosaur bones and since, according to the Creationists, the world is only 6,000 years old – a calculation devised by the 17th-century Bishop Ussher, counting back through the Bible to the Creation, a formula more or less accepted by the museum – dinosaurs must be shoehorned in somewhere, along with the Babylonians, Egyptians and the other
ancient civilisations. As for the Grand Canyon – no problem: that was, of course, created in a few months by Noah’s Flood.

But what, I ask wonderingly, about those fossilised remains of early man-like creatures? Marsh knows all about that: “There are no such things. Humans are basically as you see them today. Those skeletons they’ve found, what’s the word? … they could have been deformed, diseased or something. I’ve seen people like that running round the streets of New York.”

Nothing can dent the designer’s zeal as he leads us gingerly through the labyrinth of rooms still under construction, with bits of wood, and the odd dinosaur head occasionally blocking our path. The light of keenness shines from the faces of the workers, too, as they chisel out mountain sides and work out where to put the Tree of Life. They greet us cheerily as we pass.

They, too, know they are doing the Lord’s Work, and each has signed a contract saying they believe in the Seven Days of Creation theory. Mornings on this construction site start with prayer meetings. Don’t think for a minute that this is some sort of crazy little hole-in-the-corner project. The museum is costing $25m (£13m) and all but $3m has already been raised from private donations. It is strategically placed, too – not in the middle of nowhere, but within six hours’ drive of two-thirds of the entire population of the US. And, as we know, up to 50 million of them do believe that the Bible’s account of Creation is literally true.

We pass the site where one day an animatronic Adam will squat beside the Tree. With this commitment to authenticity, I find myself asking what they are doing about the fig leaf. Marsh considers this gravely and replies: “He is appropriately positioned, so he can be modest. There will be a lamb or something there next to him. We are very careful about that: some of our donors are scared to death about nudity.”

The same will go for the scene where Eve is created out of Adam’s rib, apparently, and parents will be warned that little children may be scared by the authenticity of some of the scenes. “Absolutely, because we are in there, being faithful to scripture.”

A little licence is allowed, however, where the Bible falls down on the details. The depiction of a wall-sized section of Noah’s Ark is based, not on the traditional picture of a flat-decked boat, but one designed by navy engineers with a keel and bows, which might, at least, have floated. “You can surmise,” says Marsh. When you get inside, there’s nifty computer software telling you how they fitted all the animals in, too.

The museum’s research scientist, Dr Jason Lisle, has a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He realised he was a Christian while he was an undergraduate, but didn’t spread it around: “People get very emotional about the issue. I don’t believe we should ever be obnoxious about our faith. I just kept quiet.” And how did he pass the exams? “I never lied, but if I was asked a question about the age of the universe, I answered from my knowledge of the topic, not my beliefs.”

The museum’s planetarium is his pride and joy. Lisle writes the commentary. “Amazing! God has a name for each star,” it says, and: “The sun’s distance from earth did not happen by chance.” There is much more in this vein, but not what God thought he was doing when he made Pluto, or why.

Now, we are taken to meet Ken Ham, the museum’s director and its inspiration. Ham is an Australian, a former science teacher – though not, he is at pains to say, a scientist – and he has been working on the project for much of the past 20 years since moving to the US. “You’d never find something like this in Australia,” he says. “If you want to get the message out, it has to be here.”

Reassuringly, on the wall outside his office, are three framed photographs of the former Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh – “cricket’s never really caught on over here” – and inside, on his bookshelves, is a wooden model of a platypus. On top of the shelves is an array of fluffy poodle toys, as well as cuddly dinosaurs. “Poodles are degenerate mutants of dogs. I say that in my lectures and people present them to me as gifts.”

Ham is a large man with a chin-hugging beard like an Old Testament prophet or an old-fashioned preacher, both of which he is, in a way. He lectures all over the world and spent a month in Britain earlier in the summer spreading the message to the faithful in parish halls from Cornwall to Scotland. “We want to try to convince people using observational science,” he says. “It’s done very gently but forthrightly. We give both sides, which is more than the Science Museum in London does.”

This is true in that the Creation museum does include an animatronic evolutionist archaeologist, sitting beside a creationist, at one point. But there’s no space for an animatronic Charles Darwin to fit alongside King David and his harp.

On the shelf behind Ham’s desk lie several surprising books, including Richard Dawkins’ latest. “I’ve skipped through it. The thing is, Dawkins does not have infinite knowledge or understanding himself. He’s got a position, too, it’s just a different one from ours. The Bible makes sense and is overwhelmingly confirmed by observable science. It does not confirm the belief in evolution.”

But if you believe in the Bible, why do you need to seek scientific credibility, and why are Creationists so reluctant to put their theories to peer review, I ask?

“I would give the same answer as Dawkins. He believes there is no God and nothing you could say would convince him otherwise. You are dealing with an origins issue. If you don’t have the information, you cannot be sure. Nothing contradicts the Bible’s account of the origins.”

We wander across to the bookshop, which, far from being another biblical epic, is done up like a medieval castle, framed with heraldic shields and filled with images of dragons – dragons, you see, being what dinosaurs became. It is full of books with titles such as Infallible Proofs, The Lie, The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved and even a DVD entitled Arguments Creationists Should Not Use. As we finish the tour, Ham tells us about the museum’s website, http://www.AnswersInGenesis.org They are expecting 300,000 visitors a year. “You’ve not seen anything yet,” he says with a smile.

Eleven percent of U.S. adults admit they don’t believe in God. Surprisingly, while 73 percent profess a belief in God, they are riddled with doubt, not certain God actually exists.

Specifically, 42 percent admit they are not “absolutely certain” there is a God, while 15 percent are only “somewhat certain.” Eleven percent think there is probably no God and 16 percent aren’t sure, according to this Harris Poll of 2,010 U.S. adults conducted in 2006. There is no consensus on God’s gender, form or degree of control over events on earth.

Not all who describe themselves as Christian or Jewish believe in God. Indeed, only 76 percent of Protestants, 64 percent of Catholics and 30 percent of Jews say they are “absolutely certain” there is a God. However, 93 percent of Christians who describe themselves as “born again” are absolutely certain there is a God.

Who is absolutely certain there is a God?

People in all age groups 40 and over (63 percent of those ages 40 to 49, 65 percent of those ages 50 to 64 and 65 percent of those ages 65 and over) compared to people in age groups under 40 (45 percent of those ages 18 to 24, 43 percent of those ages 25 to 29 and 54 percent of those ages 30 to 39); Women (62 percent) slightly more than men (54 percent); African Americans (71 percent) compared to Hispanics (61 percent) and Whites (57 percent); Republicans (73 percent) more than Democrats (54 percent) or Independents (51 percent); People with no college education (62 percent) or who have some college education (57 percent), compared to college graduates (50 percent) and those with post-graduate degrees (53 percent).

How often do we attend religious services?

35 percent attend once a month or more, including 26 percent of these who attend once a week or more. 46 percent say they attend services just a few times a year or less. 18 percent never attend.

Is God male or female?

The public is almost equally divided between those who think of God as male (36 percent) and “neither male nor female” (37 percent), with 10 percent saying “both male and female.” Only one percent thinks of God as female.

Does God have a human form?

A substantial plurality of the public (41 percent) thinks of God as “a spirit or power that can take on human form but is not inherently human.” 27 percent think of God as a “spirit or power that does not take on human form.” Only 9 percent of adults think of God as being “like a human being with a face, body, arms, legs, eyes, etc.

How much control does God have over events on earth?

Less than one-third of all adults (29 percent) believe that God “controls what happens on Earth, including 57 percent of born-again Christians. A plurality (44 percent) believes that God “observes but does not control what happens on Earth.

Do Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

About half (51 percent) of all adults, including a majority of Catholics (63 percent), believe that Jews, Christians and Muslims all worship the same God. 32 percent believe they do not. 16 percent are not sure. Among born-again Christians, 54 percent say they do not worship the same God, while 34 percent say they do.

Are believers declining?

Three years ago, in an identical survey, 79 percent of adults said they believed in God and 66 percent said they were absolutely certain that there is a God. In this new survey, those numbers have declined to 73 percent and 58 percent respectively.

Student tapes teacher proselytizing in classAccept Jesus or ‘you belong in hell,’ he said
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
BY KEN THORBOURNE
JERSEY JOURNAL

A Kearny High School student has accused a history teacher of crossing the line between teaching and preaching — and he says he’s got the tapes to prove it.

Junior Matthew LaClair, 16, said history teacher David Paszkiewicz, who is also a Baptist preacher in town, spent the first week of class lecturing students more about heaven and hell than the colonies and the Constitution.

LaClair said Paszkiewicz told students that if they didn’t accept Jesus, “you belong in hell.” He also dismissed as unscientific the theories of evolution and the “Big Bang.”

LaClair, who described his own religious views as “non-Christian,” said he wanted to complain about Paszkiewicz to school administrators, but feared his teacher would deny the charges and that no one would take a student’s word against a teacher’s. So, he said, he started taping Paszkiewicz.

“I would never have suspected something like this went on in a public school,” LaClair said yesterday. “If I didn’t have those CDs, everything would have been dismissed.”

The Jersey Journal has listened to the recordings and no one is disputing that it is Paszkiewicz who is speaking. Paszkiewicz, a teacher at the high school since 1992, did not return phone messages left for him at the high school. Principal Al Somma declined to comment.

Superintendent Robert Mooney, who called Paszkiewicz “a wonderful teacher,” said he was aware of the issues raised by LaClair — and the recordings — and that “corrective action” would be taken. He refused to elaborate. As of yesterday, however, Paszkiewicz was still teaching his class, Mooney said.

On Sept. 14 — the fourth day of class — Paszkiewicz is on tape saying, “He (God) did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sin on his own body, suffered your pains for you and he’s saying, ‘Please accept me, believe me.'”

He adds, according to the tapes: “If you reject that, you belong in hell. The outcome is your prerogative. But the way I see it, God himself sent his only son to die for David Paszkiewicz on that cross … And if you reject that, then it really is to hell with you.”

Paszkiewicz didn’t limit his religious observations to personal salvation, according to the tapes.

Paszkiewicz shot down the theories of evolution and the “Big Bang” in favor of creationism. He also told his class that dinosaurs were on Noah’s ark, LaClair said.

On Oct. 10 — a month after he first requested a meeting with the principal — LaClair met with Paszkiewicz, Somma and the head of the social studies department.

At first, Paszkiewicz denied he mixed in religion with his history lesson, and the adults in the room appeared to be buying it, LaClair said. But then he reached into his backpack and produced the CDs.

The following is from Paul L. LaClair, a NYC attorney who lives in Kearny, New Jersey, and is posted with his permission. David Paszkiewicz, the teacher described here engaging in incompetent teaching and dishonesty, http://www.kbaptistchurch.org/e/about/ is apparently a youth pastor at Kearny Baptist Church in addition to being a public school teacher. LaClair’s son Matthew has previously garnered attention for
http://barnson.org/node/640 protesting Bush administration activities by refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. He seems to be a principled and courageous young man who has caught a really bad teacher:

Kearny, New Jersey November 10, 2006

A history teacher at the local public high school here may have bitten off more than he cares to chew this fall. Self-described conservative Baptist David Paszkiewicz used his history class to proselytize biblical fundamentalism over the course of several days at the beginning of this school year.

Among his remarks in open class were statements that a being must have created the universe, that the Christian Bible is the word of God, and that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark. If you do not accept Jesus, he flatly proclaimed to his class, “you belong in hell.” Referring to a Muslim student who had been mentioned by name, he lamented what he saw as her inevitable fate should she not convert. In an attempt to promote biblical creationism, he also dismissed evolution and the Big Bang as non-scientific, arguing by contrast that the Bible is supported by what he calls confirmed biblical prophecies.

After taking the matter to the school administration, one of Paszkiewicz’s students, junior Matthew LaClair, requested a meeting with the teacher and the school principal. LaClair, a non-Christian, was requesting an apology and correction of false and anti-scientific statements. After two weeks, a meeting took place in the principal’s office, wherein Paszkiewicz denied making many of these comments, claiming that LaClair had taken his remarks out of context. Paszkiewicz specifically denied using the phrase, “you belong in hell.” He also asserted that he did nothing different in this class than he has been doing in fifteen years of teaching.

At the end of the meeting, LaClair revealed that he had recorded the remarks, and presented the principal with two compact discs. The teacher then declined to comment further without his union representative. However, he fired one last shot at the student, saying, “You got the big fish … you got the big Christian guy who is a teacher…!”

Commenting on the situation, LaClair’s father, attorney Paul LaClair said, “In a few short weeks, this teacher has displayed bigotry, hypocrisy, arrogance and an appalling ignorance of science. The school’s administrators seem not to appreciate the damage this man is doing to young minds. He has some real abilities as a teacher, but this conduct is the intellectual equivalent of the school cafeteria serving sawdust.”

The student and his parents have requested that the teacher’s anti-scientific remarks be corrected in open class, and that the school develop quality control procedures to ensure that future classes are not proselytized and misinformed. They have also referred the matter for disciplinary action. No apology has been forthcoming from the teacher or from the school. The parents state that because of the administration’s inaction, they have taken the matter to the school board this week, from whom they are awaiting a response. Some local press from this story is expected this week; the blogosphere may generate more attention.

(This came to my attention from a post on the SKEPTIC list by Paul Harrison–thanks, Paul.)

UPDATE (November 15, 2006): This story
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1163571262150640.xml&coll=1
has now been reported in the Newark Star-Ledger.

UPDATE: http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1163573821277990.xml&coll=3
The Jersey Journal has picked up the story and
http://www.nj.com/cgi-bin/prxy/xmedia/nph-cache.cgi/cache=300;/njo/njo/classaudio.mp3
put some of the audio online. The story is also being picked up by NYC-area radio and television–the LaClairs have been interviewed by or have scheduled interviews with WCBS radio, 1010 WINS radio, Fox 5 News, and NBC 4 News.

I am so happy for this dear saved soul! Now he does not have to suffer death and corruption like non-believers. He can now enjoy life everlasting and the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. And he can watch with pleasure the hideous suffering of the damned who so heartbreakingly accept facts over make believe.

I graduated from Covington Latin School at the age of 15. A couple of humanist priests taught me evolution and discredited the Bible. I almost committed suicide in despair over the “Big Bang” theory – all is meaninglessness. One of the priests committed suicide, the other, the Rev. Earl Bierman, sits in a KY jail as far as I know. I left Erlanger at the age of 17 as an atheist. That night when I arrived in CT my Father let me hear some teaching tapes on Genesis. I heard an explanation of life that I had never heard before. I have been a follower of Jesus the Christ ever since.

I recently attended Hen Ham’s Answers In Genesis Creation College 2. A very educational and inspiring week it was. I just heard the story of how you tried to stop him. Are you aware of how your evil intentions have turned out for good? A much larger and better facility has now been erected because of your opposition. I just wanted to say “Thanks!”.